May: Spike Island Open Studios, Bristol, UK

This work, entitled Flag, was selected for an exhibition within Spike Open Studios 2012 as part of the Bristol Diving School Curatorial Exercise #1. The work is a kind of physical sketch that had newly come together in my studio as part of a larger exploration of the materials related to painting. The work was tentatively assembled from two uprights, one wood and one melamine, a piece of linen with a circular area of gesso, all held together with tape. The work leaned lightly against the wall for support. 

Early in the weekend, a colleague came to my studio and told me my piece had collapsed. I went to the gallery to take a look. What I encountered appeared graphically orchestrated, the slight provisional materials reconfigured on the floor. I decided to leave the work in this state as it seemed a poetic outcome of the situation - the fallen gesture of a fragile piece situated in a public corridor-type space at a busy event. 

When I returned later, the piece had been "fixed," placed upright again in a somewhat different location and position. I do not know who repaired and righted the piece. But I got curious about this series of events and decided that rather than anxiously tending my piece over the weekend or changing its structure to be more sturdy, I would just observe what occurred. 

These images depict the casual documentation of various "experiences" of the piece, all interventions by others. I was surprised by the ongoing effort by some person(s) to help hold this work together and be presented proximate to its original state. 

By the end of the weekend, the work was in two pieces and the anonymous guardian(s) seem to have lost the memory of the original work and/or become exhausted or disinterested in the continual tending. 

The provisional is a theme in my practice. I am curious about work that has within it the potential to shift, either by its nature and/or by some participatory action. This piece was not intended to be participatory but because of its tentative nature and the wiling intervention of the public it became an evolving work, a joint effort, an anonymous collaboration. 

My thanks to my collaborators for tending this piece and furthering my thoughts about the provisional in my work.